Chapter 12. Jack Askew Found...

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_ CHAPTER TWELVE. JACK ASKEW FOUND--HIS ADVENTURES.

Was the hut deserted, or was the person whom Peter had seen waving his hands as the canoe drove past still its occupant? The hut was rudely built, partly of pieces of coral but chiefly of drift-wood, and thatched with the broad leaves of the pandanus, a species of palm growing on the island. Charley entered:--yes, it was inhabited. On a rough bed of dried leaves lay a young man; his cheeks were pale and hollow, his eyes sunken, but he breathed. "Water, water," he muttered; "oh mercy, water!"

Happily, Charley had brought a flask with some weak brandy-and-water; he poured a few drops down the sufferer's throat, while the men dispersed to try to find water on the island. Charley repeated his remedy, and by the time the water was found the sufferer was able to sit up long enough to take a refreshing draught of it. He looked around him with a surprised and bewildered air. "Who are you all?" he asked at length, in a low voice. "Where do you come from? I thought that I was left alone to die."

"Friends and countrymen; but don't speak," answered Charley, for though he was burning to learn if the sufferer was Jack Askew, he saw that he was in so weak a state from famine and sickness that any agitation might prove fatal. Suppressing therefore his curiosity, his great wish was to get him on board the _Good Hope_, where such food as was best fitted for his weak state could be procured. Still it seemed very important to give him some hot food before an attempt was made to remove him.

"I will manage it," exclaimed Elton, producing a calabash. "Let us get a fire lighted first, and see if any shell-fish or crabs, or perhaps even a young turtle may be found; I will make some soup, and though it may be blackish, it will not be the less wholesome."

As soon as the fire was lighted, while the men went to search for the fish, Elton collected a number of clean rounded stones from the beach and placed them in the midst of it. He then half-filled the calabash with water, into which, by means of a cleft stick which served the purpose of tongs, he put the red hot stones, and quickly made the water boil. By the time this was done the men returned with a very respectable sized turtle, which they had caught in a pool, into which he had been unwittingly washed. Some strips were immediately cut off him and put into the boiling pot. As soon as their goodness was supposed to be extracted, they and the stones were taken out with the cleft stick, and hotter stones and fresh strips put in. In a very short time a thick and nutritious soup was formed, which, though it would have been improved with salt, pepper, lemon, and a few other condiments, was well calculated to restore the vital energies, aided with small doses of brandy-and-water. Such, at all events, were the only means that Charley and Elton could think of for giving the sufferer the strength he required. Whether or not the turtle soup would have served the purpose without the spirit, or the spirit without the soup, it may be difficult to determine; at all events, the two combined had a most beneficial effect.

In the course of two or three hours he was able to sit up of his own accord, and then, gazing earnestly at those surrounding him, he asked, "What made you come to look for me? I have watched several ships pass, but no one saw me; no one thought that on this little island there was a human being longing to be at home with his friends, who must have long thought him dead, perhaps forgotten him altogether."

Charley saw that now was the time to speak, and that if the stranger should prove to be Jack Askew, the news he brought would do him good. "But, my friend, do you think that a fond mother so easily forgets her sailor son?--do you think a young loving sister forgets her brother?--do you suppose that an old sailor father does not know that a person may be cast on shore on a desert island in these little-known seas, and remain for years undiscovered?"

"Why do you ask those questions?" asked the lad, leaning forward with earnest eyes, and eagerly seizing Charley's arm--"How do you know that I have a sailor father, a fond mother, and a young sister?"

"If you are Jack Askew I know it very well, for your parents and dear little sister Margery have never ceased to think of you," answered Charley.

"I am! I am!" exclaimed the lad, throwing his arms round Charley's neck. "You tell me that they are alive still, father and mother, and Margery--dear, dear Margery! And are they well?--do they ever expect to see me?--can they believe that I am alive? All you tell me nearly turns my head with joy, but it won't kill me; I must live to go back to them."

Charley assured Jack that all were well, and that the only drawback to their happiness was his absence.

"And Margery! dear, dear little Margery; you must tell me all about her," exclaimed Jack, after a lengthened pause. "Is she grown?--is she as fair and bright and beautiful as she was? You don't know how I loved that little girl. I have often dreamed of her as an angel coming to look for me and take me home; and I have thought that she was flying away with me, holding my hand, over the sea and over the land; and oh, how bitter was the disappointment when I awoke and found that I was alone."

"You see, Jack, that she was constantly praying for you, and going in spirit to look for you, and her prayers were heard in heaven, as I am sure that sincere prayers, rightly prayed, are heard," observed Charley. "But you must not talk any more just now; have a little more soup, and go to sleep, if you can, for a short time, and then we will go on board."

"Thank you; you are very kind indeed, quite like a brother; and I want to know more about you--who you are, and why you came to look for me?" said Jack.

"Time enough for that when we get on board," answered Charley; "we have a somewhat long voyage before us, and it will be well to keep something in store to talk about."

Jack made no reply, he was indeed too weary to speak. Charley even now, as he watched over him, felt far from sure that he would ultimately recover, he was so thin and wan, and when he slept he looked more like a dead person than one alive.

Two or three anxious hours passed away, and every moment, as Charley watched the poor lad, he dreaded to see him heave his last sigh; but the food he had swallowed began to take effect permanently on his system--a slight colour spread slowly over his cheeks, his breathing became more regular, and when he awoke there was a brightness in his eye and a cheerfulness in his voice which Charley had not before observed. He wished that they could remain some days longer on the island, that Jack might regain more strength before going on board; but the weather was uncertain, and a gale might spring up and drive the schooner off, or perhaps wreck her; and, besides this, Jack entreated that he might be taken on board, and that no time might be lost in commencing their homeward voyage.

Hugh Owen was feeling somewhat anxious at the long delay of the boat, and was standing close in shore with the schooner to look for her, when she emerged from the passage through the reefs. His delight at seeing Jack was very great, and he declared that he could scarcely believe his senses when he found that what they had been so long talking about had really come true. By standing to the south they should be able to touch at one of the Harvey or Society Island groups, where they were certain of a hospitable reception, and of obtaining such provisions as they might require.

To refit the schooner properly, and to obtain stores for their long voyage home, it would be necessary to touch at Valparaiso, or some other port on the coast of Chili. It was a satisfaction to feel that wherever they touched among the groups of islands which have been mentioned, they would find civilised men and Christians ready to welcome them as friends, instead of as formerly savages, who would have taken every opportunity of murdering them and plundering their vessel. Still, as the noble-hearted Elton observed, as they looked over the chart of the Pacific and noted the numberless islands which dotted it in often thick-clustering groups, there must still exist a great deal of work to be done, and that he trusted to be able to engage in doing it.

Some days passed before Jack was able to speak much, and even then not beyond a whisper, or to listen to the account Charley had to give him of his expedition, and the way it had been brought about. Then, of course, he also wanted to hear of the doings at Stormount Tower, and how Margery had been carried off by the smugglers, and how Charley and Tom had recovered her. "Tom, dear old Tom, how I shall like to wring his horny fist again; it's as honest a palm as any in England!" cried Jack. "And you, Charley, what a fine fellow you are; I don't like to talk of giving Margery to any one, but I would rather give her to you, when the time comes, than to anybody else in the world; and I suspect that she wouldn't say nay if she was asked."

Charley said that he hoped so, and turned the conversation.

And now Jack was asked to narrate his own adventures, for hitherto the subject had been avoided, and he seemed in no way inclined to allude to it.

"It has been a terrible time indeed, as you may guess," he observed; "but now that it is over, I ought to think of it with gratitude to the good God who has preserved me safe through all my dangers. You know how I sailed in the _Truelove_ with Captain Summers, and how, after touching at Callao, we steered westward, to visit various islands on our way to Japan. We were in high spirits, for we thought nothing of the dangers of the voyage, and only of seeing so many beautiful and strange islands and their inhabitants. A good look-out was always supposed to be kept ahead, and we were running one night, in the first watch, believing that the whole of our voyage would be as prosperous as the commencement, when the cry arose, 'Breakers ahead! Breakers on the starboard bow!' followed by 'Breakers on the port bow!' The helm was put down, the sheets hauled flat, but before the ship could by any possibility come about, she struck--then forged ahead, to strike again more heavily.

"Directly every one on board knew that there was not the slightest hope of saving the ship, scarcely of escaping with our lives. We had a long night before us, and the wind was increasing. The order was given to lower the boats, but two were swamped and the hands in them carried away. We heard their shrieks, but could not help them; besides, we knew that their fate would soon probably be ours. Then the sea began to beat over the ship, and soon made a clean breach across the waist, washing away the captain and the first mate and several more of the men. Just then a bright light burst forth to the north-east; two or three of the men who were clinging to the taffrail with me thought that it was a ship on fire, but after watching it for some minutes we became convinced that it was a burning mountain. We argued that if there was a mountain there was land; and I had heard that such lands were generally the most fertile, and so we hoped that if we could reach it we should find support.

"There was a light burning in the cabin, and the captain's supper was on the table; I managed to reach the companion-hatch, and slipped down below. I quickly snatched up whatever provisions I could find--a compass, a quadrant, and navigation book, and returned with them on deck. A small boat hung astern; two of the men, David King and another, agreed to lower her, for the water astern appeared occasionally to be comparatively smooth, and we fancied that she might swim where a larger boat might be swamped; at all events, we believed that the ship was about to break up, and that this would be the only chance of saving our lives. There was no time to be lost; we put everything necessary we could find into the boat, and, jumping in, lowered her down. As she touched the water, the other man, crying out that we should be swamped, swarmed up the falls, and in an instant King and I were carried far away from the ship. I thought his words would come true, but we were driven on right through the surf, and once more floated in smooth water.

"What would happen next we could not tell, so we lay on our oars, waiting till daylight. It was very long of coming; we thought that it never would come--at least that we should never see it. When it broke, we could no longer see the burning mountain, nor any land in that direction; nor could we have reached it had we seen it, for the wind was blowing strong from the quarter in which the light had appeared. Still more anxiously we looked for the ship; not a portion of her remained entire, but the numerous pieces of wreck which floated about near us, told us plainly what had become of her and our shipmates. We looked about, hoping that some of them might be floating on bits of the wreck, but no living being was to be seen. In the distance we observed the bodies of two poor fellows; we pulled up to them, knowing from the first that they were dead; they were those of two men who had been holding on to the ship when we left her.

"It would not do to remain where we were, and as we could not sail in the direction we proposed, we agreed to run before the wind till we could fall in with some island on which we could land. For four anxious days we ran on, till some palm-trees appeared ahead rising out of the water, and we knew that we we approaching a coral island. The wind had happily fallen, but the surf ahead showed us our danger in time, and putting down our helm we stood to the southward till we came to the end of the island; keeping away again we found a passage through the reef, by which we safely entered the lagoon.

"Here, for the present, we were safe from the dangers of the sea; the island was uninhabited, and we found a spring of water, but provisions were not likely to be plentiful. There were cocoa-nuts for one part of the year, and turtle and their eggs occasionally, and roots and shell-fish; and after a time it occurred to King that we might be able to catch some fish. Having walked round and round the island, or rather, almost round and back again, and considered how we should procure food, our next care was to build a hut to shelter ourselves from the sun by day, and the dews by night.

"And now commenced a solitary life, the end of which we could not see. Years might go by before a vessel might pass that way, and if one should pass, what little chance was there of our being seen! Still, I do not think a day went by without our talking on the subject, and looking out for a sail. King, poor fellow, was not much of a companion, as we had few ideas in common; but we never grew tired of talking of the probability of our getting away. He had a wife and family in England whom he longed to see, as much as I did my friends. How many months or years went by while he was with me I could not tell, for our life was a very monotonous one.

"We had kept our boat in as good repair as possible, not with the hope of making our escape in her, for she was too small for that, but for the purpose of putting off to get on board any ship which might appear. We were, therefore, chary of using her, but occasionally we went out fishing in her, when the supply we could get in the lagoon or from the shore ran short. One day I was ill, and King said that he would go out by himself. I warned him not to go, for from the appearance of the sky I thought bad weather was coming on. He laughed at my fears, said that he would bring me back a good dinner, and rowed round to the eastward of the island.

"He had not been gone long before my prognostications were verified; the wind began to rise. I went to the beach and beckoned him to return, but he was busy hauling up fish and did not see me, or observe the altered state of the weather; I shouted, but my voice did not reach him. He had already drifted out farther than usual; suddenly the movement of the boat as she got into rough water made him look up. By some carelessness one of his oars slipped overboard, and before he could recover it the squall had caught the boat, and whirling it round had sent her far from it. I saw his frantic gestures as he endeavoured to scull the boat back toward the island. Now he tried to paddle her with his remaining oar as an Indian does a canoe, but in vain. Every instant the gale was increasing and driving her farther and farther away.

"I watched her with a sinking heart growing less and less to my sight, till she was lost among the foaming seas in the distance. I then for the first time felt with full force my lonely position; I wrung my hands like a child; I burst into tears; I bemoaned my hard fate, and thought that I was forsaken of God and man. Not only was my companion taken from me, but the only means that I saw by which I could effect my escape. He might possibly reach some other shore; I should never leave that on which I was drawing out my weary existence. I see now, from what you tell me, how short-sighted I was; that our kind Father in heaven chooses His own way in carrying out plans for our benefit, and that what I thought was my ruin would ultimately prove the means of my rescue.

"For several days after King had gone I could neither eat nor sleep, or if I slept I dreamed that I saw him floating away, and tried to follow and could not. By degrees I recovered a portion of my tranquillity. Still I watched more eagerly for any passing ship. It might have been nearly a year afterwards, one morning as I arose a sail hove in sight. My heart leaped within me: I thought in my folly that those on board were coming to look for me. Oh how eagerly I watched her as her masts rose out of the water! On she came; I could see that she was a ship, a large ship, a man-of-war by her square yards. She must have sighted the island, and I thought that she would approach to survey it more carefully, when suddenly--perhaps some reef unknown to me intervened-- she turned aside, and after hovering in the distance to tantalise me the more, she slowly stood away to the northward. I was almost as much overcome as when poor King was blown off the island. I now passed my days in a dull state of apathy; I had no books, no writing materials. Had I, as I might when I visited the cabin, brought away a Bible I saw on the captain's table which he had been reading for the last time, what a blessing and a comfort it would have, proved to me! I had a knife and an axe, and I often began to make various articles, but I had not the heart to finish them, for I always thought--'No one will see them, of what use will they be?' So the days passed on. Two other vessels appeared at long intervals, but passed at too great a distance to see me. One of them was becalmed off the island for some hours, and had I still possessed the boat I could without difficulty have pulled off to her. At length I fell sick; I had long been ailing, and it is my belief that had you not appeared at the moment you did, my career on earth would soon have been over."

"God, who in His kind mercy had resolved that you should be saved, so directed our movements for your speedy rescue; so that you owe us no gratitude," observed Elton. "But I am surprised at the description you give of your sensations, I had thought that a solitary life on an island might be made very pleasant and satisfactory."

"Oh, no, no!" cried Jack, "do not believe any such thing. We are not born to live alone, of that I became convinced. An older man might have found the life less irksome, but when I took it into my head that I should never get away it became perfectly terrible. Even had I not been ill, I do not think that I could have survived many weeks longer."

Such was the outline Jack gave of his life on the island, but when once he had begun the subject he described many adventures and other details which showed that there had been rather more variety it his existence than he had at first led his hearers to suppose, and that had he had books and paper and pens, he might probably have kept up his spirits better than he appeared to have done.

"Still, all is well that ends well!" exclaimed Jack, after he had one day been talking on the subject. "I now feel sure that what I have gone through was for my ultimate benefit, and I can thank God for the merciful way in which He has dealt with me."

The _Good Hope_ touched at several islands, the entire population of which had become Christians not only in name but in deed, as they evinced by their lives and their totally changed characters. She got a thorough refit at Valparaiso, on the coast of Chili, to prepare her for her voyage round Cape Horn, and five months after Jack got on board she sighted the shores of Old England. Captain Blount felt sure that he could pilot her safely into Stormount Bay, but the wind fell somewhat, and the shades of evening came on before the schooner could beat up to it. Just then a fishing-boat was sighted, and a signal was made to her that a pilot was wanted. She was soon alongside, and a stout, middle-aged man stepped on board.

"Can you pilot us into Stormount Bay, friend?" asked the captain.

"I should think I could, since I've sailed in and out of it, man and boy, for pretty nigh forty years," answered the man. "It makes no matter night or day to us now either. You see that bright light just now, beaming out from the top of the cliff it seems? That's the light the lady who lives in the tower burns every night, that (as they say) her lost son who went away to sea and has never since been heard of, may see it when he comes up Channel, and find his way into the bay. Poor lad, I'd give pretty nigh all I'm worth to see him come back, for I was the main cause, I fear, why he was sent away; and bless his honest old father, he has never owed me a grudge for it, but on the contrary, has done me all the kindness in his power,--he has taught me to be an honest man."

The fisherman might have run on much longer had not Jack, who overheard him, exclaimed, "Nor do I owe you a grudge, Dick Herring; but tell me, old friend, how are my father and mother, and sister Margery, and old Tom, good old Tom?"

"Why, bless my heart! Master Jack, is it you? Well, it's hard to believe my senses,--and you to be alive all this time!" exclaimed Dick Herring, seizing Jack's hand and wringing it nearly off. "They're all well, every one on 'em, and they will be glad to see you, that they will."

Dick now recognised Charley, and right proud he was to pilot the _Good Hope_ into Stormount Bay, nor would he receive a shilling reward, not even a glass of grog to drink Jack's health, for since he had given up smuggling and all its accompanying sins, he had become a strict temperance-league man.

"No, Master Jack, I won't drink your health, but I'll pray for it, and that'll do us both more good," he observed.

Little did Mrs Askew suppose whose vessel her lantern was guiding into Stormount Bay that night. The schooner's anchor was dropped and her sails furled before nine o'clock. The voyagers had purposed waiting till the morning before going on shore, but Jack's impatience would brook no delay. Charley went first and announced himself to Becky, who immediately exclaimed under her breath, "Is he come, Master Charles?"

"Never mind," answered Charley, "Do you go in and say Charley Blount has come."

Somebody heard his voice, and that somebody, forgetting that he was not Jack himself, rushed into his arms. "Has Jack come? has Jack come? Dear Charley, have you brought him?" exclaimed Margery.

"I can't keep you in suspense, my sweet Margery, he has come, and is not far off," answered Charley and before he could say more, Tom, who had followed Becky to the door, darted out into the darkness, and was soon heard exclaiming, "Come in, come in, my dear boy, joy does no harm to no one!"

Mrs Askew, who had been sitting at her work opposite Captain Askew, who was reading the newspaper by a bright light, hearing an unusual commotion, rose from her seat, as he also did from his.

"What is it all about, Margery?" cried the captain, stumping to the door.

"Good news, father, good news!" cried Margery. "Charley has come back safe, and he has--"

"Has he brought our boy--has Jack been found?" asked the captain, his voice trembling with eagerness.

"Yes, dear father, he has, he has!" cried Margery.

"Then let me have him here, and thank God!" cried the old sailor, stretching out his arms; and Jack, who had been hauled in by Tom, overheard him, and in another second, bounding up the stairs, was folded in those arms, with his mother and Margery clinging to his neck and weeping tears of joy.

The evening was indeed a happy one, and not till a late hour did any of the inmates of Stormount Tower think of retiring to rest.

While Mrs Askew lived, the light in the Tower was always, as before, lit at night, and on her death a lighthouse was built in its place. Charley Blount at a very early age, got command of a fine trader to India and Australia, and on the death of her parents Margaret Askew became his wife, while Jack was chief mate with Captain Blount for many years; and when the latter came to live on shore, Jack took command of a fine ship he had built, called _The Stormount Tower_.

[THE END]
William H. G. Kingston's Book: Washed Ashore: The Tower of Stormount Bay

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